


We Have Found Our End in You

by madsthenerdygirl



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 02:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14727845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsthenerdygirl/pseuds/madsthenerdygirl
Summary: What if someone else had been left behind in Chinatown?





	We Have Found Our End in You

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a modified line from the poem "Unending Love" by Rabindranath Tagore. The idea for this fic came from captainofthefallen and I assuming that Wyatt was going to sacrifice himself and get left behind in Chinatown when things went south.

Rufus couldn’t quite believe it had happened. Not at first.

He was running with Jiya to the Lifeboat, bullet wound in his shoulder, and Lucy had taken off somewhere after Emma.

“Go!” Wyatt shouted. “Just run for it, Flynn and I will cover you!”

 _There’s five_ , Rufus wanted to say. _There’s five of us, and you said I’d be the one left behind…_

He knew that Lucy was coming, somehow. Neither Flynn nor Wyatt would leave her. But this wasn’t how the plan was supposed to go, this wasn’t how it worked…

Rufus let Jiya help him into the Lifeboat, her hands shaking as she grabbed the first aid kit they kept under one of the seats, pressing gauze to his wound.

“I’m alive,” he reminded her. “Hey, Jiya, it’s okay my love. It’s okay.”

She just kept shaking her head. “God knows what kind of diseases you’ll have picked up, we need to get you back to the present now. Lucy just had a scratch and she was in a fever for five days…”

He caught Jiya’s hands, forced them to still. “Hey.”

She looked him in the eyes—those big dark eyes, that snapped and roiled like a thunderstorm, the ones he thought he’d never get to see again.

“I’m alive,” he told her. “We’re both alive, and we’re going to be okay.”

So he was in the Lifeboat with Jiya, and didn’t see what happened.

All that he knew was more gunfire, and shouting, and then Lucy, giving an unholy scream.

“No!”

And then Flynn was dragging Lucy—literally dragging her—into the Lifeboat, an arm around her waist, ignoring her screaming protests as he dumped her into one of the seats and buckled her up.

“Jiya, take off!” Flynn ordered.

Lucy was sobbing, broken, but clinging to Flynn. “We can’t,” she said. “Garcia, please, we can’t—”

The door to the Lifeboat closed—but it wasn’t closed by any of them on the inside. Rufus turned, caught a glimpse of a hand—Wyatt’s hand—and then the Lifeboat was closed and Flynn was barking “now, Jiya!” and Jiya was taking off and Lucy was sobbing as Flynn held her hands—

He couldn’t quite believe it.

Not at first.

Not until they landed back in the bunker—the bunker they’d have to evacuate, thanks Jess—and Flynn practically carried Lucy out. Lucy who was crying quietly into Flynn’s shoulder, no longer resisting, just letting him take care of her. Not until Jiya turned and looked at Rufus, the look on her face saying it all: _I told you not to come for me._ Not until he was helped out of the Lifeboat and saw the look on Agent Christopher’s face, the way her eyes went dark and sad.

Then he believed it.

Flynn found him, sitting on the couch, unable to sleep.

“Lucy okay?” Rufus asked.

It was pretty clear that something was going on between the two of them. Lucy hadn’t been sleeping on the couch the last few days, and unless she was sharing with Mason, there was only one place she could be staying. And Rufus saw the way she trusted Flynn, the way she took his side against Wyatt when Wyatt was being snippy, how she clung to Flynn even as she yelled at him.

He wasn’t sure if he approved or not. He and Flynn were… something. Almost-not-quite-friends. He trusted the dude, to an extent. And he knew that Flynn would cut off his arm if Lucy so much as suggested she’d like that. But he didn’t think Lucy was quite over Wyatt, either.

Well, she definitely wasn’t over him if that breakdown had been any indication.

“She’s…” Flynn made a noise in the back of his throat, like Lucy’s pain hurt him too. Like he could feel it, like a physical wound. “She’ll survive.” He looked over at Rufus. “How are you holding up?”

Rufus tilted his head, staring at the wall. “I don’t know.”

Wyatt’s actions were part of why they’d ended up in this mess in the first place. That didn’t mean that Rufus was happy about Wyatt being left behind, possibly dead. Wyatt was in some ways his best friend.

In other ways he was a pain in the ass, but, so it goes.

“What happened?” he asked, looking back up at Flynn.

Flynn scrubbed a hand over his face. “We were being pinned down by gunfire. Lucy went after Emma for killing Carol. I was in a better position, so Wyatt told me to grab Lucy, get her to safety. He’d distract the gunmen.

“I didn’t like it but he said it was…” Flynn swallowed, and suddenly Rufus couldn’t tell what the expression on his face was. What his tone of voice said. “It was his fault, that we were in this mess.

“I told him we’d come back for him.” Flynn added. “Told him to meet us, same place we found the Lifeboat, a year from then. That would give us enough space so that we wouldn’t be crossing over our own timeline, I figured. I told him just to stay alive until then.”

“So he is alive.”

“He might be. He was alive enough to close the Lifeboat door for us. Alive enough to promise he’d meet us there.”

Rufus couldn’t help it. Sometimes he just had to poke the bear. “Pretty thoughtful of you. Looking out for him like that.”

Flynn raised his eyebrows. “After he spent the whole time bitching at me, is that what you’re saying?”

Rufus shrugged. “I call it like it is. You two weren’t the best of friends.”

Flynn made an odd hollow sort of sound. “According to him, no, we weren’t.”

“And according to you?”

Flynn’s expression was once again unreadable. Or maybe it was readable, but Rufus just couldn’t get it to add up. “According to me, if Wyatt stopped focusing so much on himself and actually paid attention to the people around him, he’d be surprised at what he saw.”

Flynn walked over to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water, then started up the coffee maker. Right. Conversation over.

They didn’t say anything more to each other. Flynn just made the coffee—two cups, Rufus noticed—and carried that and the water bottle tucked under his arm back towards the bedrooms.

Dehydration after crying, Rufus remembered. Crying made you dehydrated, you needed to drink a lot of water.

He got up. He suddenly really needed to hold Jiya again.

 

 

* * *

 

It took them three months to get to Wyatt.

They had to relocate to their new hideaway first, before Rittenhouse got to them. Lucy wasn’t pleased with the idea.

“We can go back and get him, it’ll only take us an hour,” she argued.

“An hour is enough time for Rittenhouse to storm this place,” Denise replied.

Rufus looked over at Flynn, who seemed these days to speak to Lucy in a language that the rest of them couldn’t quite manage, a language she actually heard and listened to. Whether it was her mom or Wyatt or both, something had snapped in Lucy that day in Chinatown. Something dark lived inside of her now. Dark and hungry. And only Flynn seemed able to quiet it.

“Wyatt would kill us if we got him first,” Flynn said quietly, laying his hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “He’d want us to be safe.”

Lucy looked for a moment as though she was going to argue, but then she just pursed her lips together and nodded, stiffly. “Fine.”

They moved to another bunker, this one further north, which meant—oh joy, oh rapture—heavier winters. They all worked together to install better security, between Flynn’s guerilla warfare tactics, setting up traps, and Jiya’s hacking and Mason and Rufus’s engineering and Christopher’s experience and resources.

Lucy was more focused on Rittenhouse. Rufus often found her up at night, scribbling furiously in history books, making graphs and marking maps.

Flynn was always up with her, sometimes making her food.

Once, he caught them just talking in low voices.

“Would he even be okay with that?” Flynn was asking, his voice hushed.

“I don’t care.” Lucy’s voice was cracking, angry and sad at the same time. “I don’t care anymore. I just…”

Her voice faded out again, so the next thing Rufus heard was Flynn saying, “…not like he makes it easy.”

“How long have you known?” Lucy asked.

Flynn blew out a heavy breath. “Since the Kennedy mission.”

What was since the Kennedy mission? Rufus didn’t know, and he had a feeling he wasn’t supposed to find out. Lucy and Flynn’s voices got low again, and Rufus made himself scarce.

But finally, through all the late nights and the arguments and the mornings with that sick hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach when there was still that empty place at the table—finally, they were going to get Wyatt.

Jiya stayed behind. No way was Rufus letting her get anywhere near the time and place that she’d been stranded for three years.

“Be careful,” Jiya told him. As if he could be anything but that when he had her to come home to.

He told her as much, wrapping her up in a hug. “I love you.” He’d been trying to say it more, since their separation and his near miss with a bullet.

“I love you too.” Jiya kissed his cheek. “Now go and save that idiot.”

They piled into the Lifeboat, Flynn buckling Lucy in. Rufus couldn’t quite decipher the looks on their faces. Flynn looked like he was a man walking to the guillotine who was supposedly going to be saved at the last minute by his band of hearty friends but was worried they might not make it in time. Lucy looked like a general who’d just ordered her troops out to a battle that was probably suicide.

…maybe he needed to cool it with the metaphors.

They landed safely enough, in the right time—1889—and the right location—same spot Jiya had hid it—but Rufus still felt like he was holding his breath.

He looked over at Flynn. Flynn looked over at Lucy.

Lucy unbuckled herself and stood up. “Well.”

They clambered out of the Lifeboat.

For a moment there was nothing but the silent woods, and Rufus thought—they were too late. Wyatt had died in the firefight, or at some other time, and a year was too long of a time for him to wait, they should’ve done six months, or three months, or maybe even just a few weeks—

Then a figure stepped out from behind a tree.

“Had to make sure it was really you,” Wyatt said.

“You look like shit,” Rufus blurted out.

Wyatt looked down at his torn, old clothes, then looked back up at Rufus. “Thanks, Rufus, good to see you too.”

It wasn’t the clothes that Rufus was talking about, though. It was the dark circles under Wyatt’s eyes. The hollow look to his cheeks. The exhausted slump to his shoulders.

Then his eyes landed on Lucy, and his face lit up with such hope that Rufus could feel his own heart breaking in sympathy.

“Luce—”

Whatever else Wyatt was going to say was lost as Lucy launched herself at him, hugging him tightly. Wyatt stood there for a minute, unsure, but then tentatively put an arm around her waist. Lucy made a choked noise and Wyatt tightened his hold on her, anchoring her.

“I’m sorry,” Rufus heard him mutter. “I’m so sorry, I was such an ass, I was so goddamn unfair to you.”

“It’s okay,” Lucy replied, because she was still their Lucy somewhere under there and their Lucy was a saint who was too good for either of those idiots. She pulled back, taking Wyatt’s face into her hands. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”

Then she kissed him.

Rufus could feel his jaw dropping, glanced over at Flynn—and was surprised at how upset he was on Flynn’s behalf. Sure, they’d grown closer over the last three months. There’d even been this one night where Flynn had apologized for killing Anthony, had talked in a low, broken voice about how far into the darkness of his own soul he’d dipped, and Rufus had found that forgiving him was easier than he’d expected.

But he hadn’t realized until that moment how much he’d come to trust Flynn, to depend upon Flynn, and to take Flynn and Lucy as a couple for granted—God, anyone could see the man was devoted to her.

And now Lucy was just… what, going to leave him for Wyatt?

Then Lucy pulled back. Wyatt had this stunned sort of look on his face, and there might even have been tears in his eyes but hey, Rufus was not about to judge a man for crying, God knew how his last year had been. Lucy took a step back, but still held onto one of Wyatt’s hands…

And then Flynn was stepping forward. Stepping forward and oh so gently bringing his hand up to cup Wyatt’s cheek, moving as if stuck in molasses, giving Wyatt plenty of time to move or back away.

Wyatt didn’t do either.

He just stayed there, still, as Flynn ducked his head down and, with more gentleness than Rufus had ever seen from the guy except when dealing with Lucy, kissed him.

It wasn’t much, just a very soft, very brief kiss, but when Flynn pulled back Wyatt’s eyes stayed closed. His face looked like a man wrecked.

Rufus couldn’t quite see Lucy’s face but he could see her hand gripping Wyatt’s, the knuckles white with the strength of it. She reached out and took Flynn’s hand as well, holding both, waiting.

Rufus felt kind of like the whole world was waiting.

Wyatt opened his eyes. Stared up at Flynn. Looked over at Lucy, who gave him a small nod.

Then he turned and just as carefully kissed Flynn back.

Rufus could see Lucy’s legs almost buckle with the force of her relief, the way that Flynn's hand shook slightly where it was cupping Wyatt's face. Wyatt pulled back and then saw Rufus staring. “What, don’t tell me you want one too.”

“I’m good,” Rufus said, grinning. “I’ll settle for a hug, though.”

Wyatt stank like a motherfucker but he felt strong and secure when Rufus hugged him, no sign of bad injuries or disease. “You made it,” Rufus told him, gripping him by the shoulders. “You did it.”

Wyatt’s grin was big but watery. “Somehow.”

When they piled out of the Lifeboat this time, it was so that Jiya could sprint over and hug Wyatt, stink notwithstanding, and then Denise was hugging Wyatt too, getting a little choked up but trying to hide it.

After all the hugging hello, Wyatt was bundled off to the shower by Lucy, who informed him in no uncertain terms that she was performing an act of sainthood getting him to wash that awful 19th century grime off. Rufus was kind of swept up by Jiya at that point and Flynn was moving around the kitchen cooking something (Rufus didn’t even want to ask at that point but when did Flynn get elected chef?) so he really didn’t get a chance to talk to, well, any of the three until later that night.

Jiya was asleep with her head in his lap, having lost the battle with unconsciousness during Luke’s attempt to lift some rocks while doing a handstand. Rufus was considering just turning off the television and bundling her off to bed when Wyatt entered.

He was wearing a pair of sweatpants that Rufus recognized as his, but a big, dark sweater that was decidedly _not_ his. His hair was mussed and there was a suspicious looking shadow just around the collar area.

Rufus smirked. “Welcomed home properly, I take it?”

Wyatt jumped, startled, then settled again when he saw who it was. “You could say that,” he said carefully.

Rufus watched as Wyatt grabbed a bottle of water and started drinking from it. “The other two asleep?”

Wyatt nodded. “Yeah.”

“I gotta admit, I didn’t expect the, uh…”

“Me and Flynn part?” Wyatt made a face. “Yeah… a year’s a long time, especially when you can’t trust anyone and there’s no point in making friends ‘cause you’re hopefully going to be leaving soon. Enough time to, um, realize the ways you messed up. And the reasons why you might have thought you hated someone.”

“And Jess?”

Wyatt took another sip of water. “I don’t know. But I’m not—I’m not going to mess this up this time. Not when they’ve given me a second chance.”

Rufus nodded. “I’m happy for you. By the way. In case that wasn’t clear.”

Wyatt smiled, and for the first time since they’d picked him up, he looked… not just happy, but content. Like he was realizing that he was allowed to keep this good thing, this time, that it wasn’t going to fly away from him. “Thanks.”

Lucy entered, looking half-asleep still, marching right over and taking the bottle of water from him to take a few gulps. “Night Rufus,” she said, grabbing Wyatt’s hand and leading him back down the hallway.

“I take it we won’t expect you three for breakfast,” Rufus called after them.

Wyatt flipped him off. Rufus just smiled down at Jiya. Stroked her hair to watch the way that she leaned into the touch like a cat.

Maybe now, things would finally start looking up.


End file.
